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Saturday, June 03, 2006

Unbreakable Union of Freeborn Republics!

Here is the official Communist Party translation of the national anthem of the USSR. These words ring in the ears of every Russian over 30 (granted, this is a smaller and smaller number) whenever the song is played, as it was for example whenever Russia won a gold medal (albeit quite rarely) at the Torino Olympiad.

And can you imagine, even worse, being under 30 and not really knowing the words and then coming across them, realizing that the music is still Russia's official music of patriotism and love for country. How is this possible? How do Russians fail to vomit when the remember these words, or turn beet red with humilation? Someone with more insight into the Russian psyche than La Russophobe would have to answer that one. Suffice it to say that words like "unbreakable" and "victory" and "freedom" and "mighty" and "freeborn" and "republics" and "forever" and "Great Russia" do serve one purpose: helping to realize how totally outrageous and classically Russian is the rise of the Neo-Soviet state.

Can you imagine if Germany had a national anthem about killing Jews, or American had one about killing Blacks, during World War II or the Civil War, and the music with different words still echoed across America or Germany today?

Unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics,
Great Russia has welded forever to stand.
Created in struggle by will of the people,
United and mighty, our Soviet land!

CHORUS:

Sing to the Fatherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism's triumph lead us on!


2.

Through tempests the sunrays of freedom have cheered us,
Along the new path where great Lenin did lead.
To a righteous cause he raised up the peoples,
Inspired them to labour and valourous deed.


CHORUS

3.

In the victory of Communism's deathless ideal,
We see the future of our dear land.
And to her fluttering scarlet banner,
Selflessly true we always shall stand!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey--I think your blog is absolutely fantastic (as a Ukrainian, I have good reason to be a Russophobe too!), but for the record: the Germans DO sing their anthem to the same music as "Deutschland uber alles" of Nazi-era vintage. (They just use the third verse, the one that talks about blander things like unity, brotherhood, and so on.)